Category: Asia-Pacific regional architecture

Dr Malcolm Cook and Mr Andrew Shearer at the Lowy Institute in Sydney published last month a short analysis entitled Going Global: A New Australia-Japan Agenda for Multilateral Cooperation:
‘To help both governments navigate [a] more complicated and uncertain international environment, the paper offers a agenda for enhanced Australia-Japan multilateral cooperation organised around:
– support for American global leadership, and
– reforming post-war multilateralism.
Three areas of international policy are particularly well suited to closer Australia-Japan cooperation in pursuit of these goals: climate change and energy security; nuclear non-proliferation; and official development assistance.’
I have some doubts about these two foundational principles, especially over the mid- to long-term, given America’s own longstanding ambivalence about multilateralism, and its relative decline particularly since the GFC. In the short term, however, it seems worthwhile to think more deeply and creatively about three of their seven specific recommendations:
‘- Leverage APEC and the East Asia Summit more to act as caucuses in multilateral bodies like the WTO …
– Better coordinate Australian and Japanese aid policies and programs …
– More ambitiously, develop and pursue an Australia-Japan agenda for reform of the multilateral system.’ (p2)

Continue reading “Australia and Japan as America’s Deputies – in Multilateralism?”

[Originally posted, with full hyperlinks, at http://eastasiaforum.org/author/lukenottage/]
For weeks I have been tracking this latest evolving food safety scandal, but reports and reactions vary markedly across the region. Media coverage is likely to remain disparate. But the saga should provide lessons for developing bilateral and regional infrastructure to “trade up” to a more harmonized regime, better securing consumer product safety in our FTA era.
At a news conference this Wednesday the Chinese Health Ministry announced melamine limits for dairy products, but declined to provide updated statistics on those so far harmed by tainted products. In September the figures given were 53000 children sickened, 13000 hospitalised, and at least three dead from kidney stones due to drinking products made from milk that suppliers or intermediaries had bolstered with this chemical to hide the fact it had been watered down. Yet the government demands notification if Chinese lawyers decide to represent victims.

Continue reading “Consequences of melamine-laced milk for China, NZ, Japan and beyond”

[Originally posted, with full hyperlinks, at http://eastasiaforum.org/author/lukenottage/]
As an Australian/New Zealander lawyer who has spent almost eight years on and off in Japan since 1990, I am concerned that both sides tend to adopt internally inconsistent positions on whaling. What can the law add to this controversial topic?
Kent Anderson rightly points out the Japan reveals a major “blind spot” in underestimating antipodean objections nowadays to commercial whaling. But some Japanese commentators are all too aware of those objections; it’s just that they think them to be hypocritical. That is, when Australia brings claims against Japan under the WTO (or potentially, soon, under our FTA), it insists that any measures impeding its agricultural trade need to be based on science and economics, not the cultural values invoked by Japanese farming communities or their politicians and bureaucrats. Yet when whales are at stake, Australia insists that this is not about science and economics. The ethics involved in killing or keeping alive these magnificent mammals become a major factor – increasingly, it seems, a definitive one. Japanese commentators tend to see this as a double standard, which is why some of them delight then in highlighting kangaroo culling or ethically debatable farming practices in Australia.
But the Japanese government’s position is also inconsistent. When it defends WTO claims, at least to its own citizens, it invokes culture and ethics. Yet when it comes to whaling, the government and the media focus instead on economics and science. A major reason for this double standard, but also Australia’s, is local politics. Rural communities retain disproportionate voting power in Japan, while an anti-whaling stance plays into growing public concerns about other environmental issues in Australia.
How can the law help in such tense situations?

Continue reading “Whaling: What can law add to science, economics, ethics and politics?”